The double-bass plays the lowest notes of all the Strings. It doubles, that is to say, it plays in the lower octave the bass part given to the bass voice, whether this be the violoncello, bassoon, or any other instrument.

Its strings are E, A, D and G. They are very coarse, thick and heavy. The music for the double-bass is written in the F, or Bass, Clef, an octave above the real sound of the notes. This is done to avoid the use of the ledger lines.

To understand what the double-bass is we have to go back to the Viol Family again. We saw that the viol was made in four sizes to make the quartet:—tenor or discant; viola da braccio; viol da gamba; and violone. We also saw that the violin gradually developed from the tenor viol; that the viola da braccio became the viola; and that the viola da gamba became the violoncello. Each passed through many changes until the modern instrument was perfected. Strange to say, the double-bass made on the violin pattern did not find favor; and the makers, therefore, went back to the viol type.

So the double-bass is practically the old violone with a very few slight changes. It still retains some of the characteristics of the old Viol Family; for instance, its flat back (instead of the new arched back of the new Violin Family) and its slanting shoulders; but it has yielded to the new style in its f-holes and its four corner blocks. We may call the double-bass a combination of the models of the violin and the viola da gamba and not be far wrong. Compare the double-bass facing this page and the viola da gamba facing page 60, and you will see the same slanting shoulders and general form. The double-bass also follows the habit of the Viol Family in being tuned in fourths instead of fifths.

If we look at the row of double-basses in the Orchestra, we will notice that some of the men are playing on instruments with three strings and others on instruments with four strings; but the work they have to do is practically the same. It is fascinating to watch the players whose hands move so rapidly up and down the long neck of the instrument and whose fingers fall so intelligently and firmly upon the right places, while the short, thick, black-haired bow looks sometimes as if it would saw the double-bass in two.

We seldom hear a solo from the double-bass; for composers do not encourage him. His voice in spite of his huge size lacks substance.

We cannot imagine the double-bass whispering a tender love-song, or indulging in any sweet sentiment. It is essentially an orchestral instrument. Its heavy notes are for the good of the community. They help make a fine, firm background for the melodies and harmonies of the more delicate instruments.

The best effects of the double-bass are obtained on his open strings; and it can (and often does) produce harmonics.

No composer ever thought of taking any special notice of it until Gluck saw its possibilities and made it imitate the hoarse barking of Cerberus in his opera of Orfeo. On the words “At the dire howling of Cerberus,” the double-basses are doubled with the violas and violoncellos and make a wonderful effect in depicting the three-headed dog of the lower regions.

Mozart used the double-bass with great skill in Don Giovanni; but still there was no call for a solo from the double-bass. Nobody thought of attracting attention to this clumsy old growler, sedate and solemn, often severe, occasionally savage, and, at his best moments, gloomy and vague, until Beethoven gave him greater and greater importance.

The next time you hear Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony watch for the Scherzo and listen to the double-bass. The opening bars of this movement are played as a solo by the violoncello and double-bass. The people who first heard such a strange innovation were aghast and horrified!

But Beethoven made a still stranger and more striking use of the double-bass in the Ninth Symphony. Here he employed it with the viola as a kind of bridge leading from the sounds of instruments to human voices. Deeply, darkly, solemnly the voice of the double-bass is heard in an impressive recitative that seems to call mankind together to hear the message that the human voices have to give. Then begin the words of Schiller’s Ode to Joy.

Verdi considered the double-bass a dark, morbid personality, particularly fitted for tragedy. He calls upon the double-bass to describe Otello’s entrance into Desdemona’s chamber when he comes to murder her. Here the double-bass darkly and wickedly mutters all that is in Otello’s savage heart and tells us just what he means to do.

But, perhaps, the most striking treatment of the double-bass is in Wagner’s Die Meistersinger. “In this score,” Charles Villiers Stanford thinks, “you find the most economical and perfectly proportionate use of that dangerous rogue-elephant, the double-bass.”

Naturally as there are no compositions written for him to shine in the front of the concert stage, there have been few great performers on the double-bass.

There were, however, two very great Italian players. One was Domenico Dragonetti. He was born in 1755. Nothing was too hard for him to play, and he achieved a great reputation. He played in concerts throughout Europe. The other was Bottesini, who was born in 1822. He was also considered a wonder. He played on a three-stringed instrument of rather small size. Bottesini visited the United States with Arditi about seventy-five years ago. Dragonetti played on a Gasparo di Salò. He also owned a Stradivari.

Double-basses by the Cremonese makers are rare. Stradivari made a few and Nicolò Amati made three or four; but Amati’s instruments are not effective in the Orchestra. Carlo Bergonzi’s are among the best ever made; for Bergonzi, as we have seen,[17] was famous for instruments of strong tone and he went back to the Gasparo di Salò model.[18] We also know that the double-bass has to keep to the Viol model; so it is not hard to see why Carlo Bergonzi’s instruments are so highly valued.